131,072 Schmongeloid conscripts

Decimated on March 4, 2007.

Apparently keeping over a hundred-thousand Westphalian Schmongeling Gnomes as a standing army has its downsides. For example, they tend to get uppity when you don’t feed them for a week or two, and then they tend to revolt.

Mine did that this week.

Even Samuel Dreckers, trained assassin, was no match for 131,072 ravenous, open-mouthed Schmongeling Gnomes from Westphalia. They came in droves, wheedling and needling in insatiable hunger, swarming all around him as he tried in vain to fight them off with the tenth-century trebuchet he stole from the French.

Unfortunately, trebuchets are not particularly useful at close range—nor against thousands of tiny opponents, each a mere four inches tall. Gnomes in chariots engulfed him. Within minutes, they had devoured him completely, leaving behind nothing but the trebuchet—and his corneas. Gnomes don’t like corneas.

His last words were “Aaaaggghhh!!!”

Once again, I scoffed. I laughed. I twiddled my thumbs. I twiddled Ravna’s toes. I even chortled a bit. Then… I wet myself, panicked, and fled like a little girl still in her pigtails. Hiding in a hole proved less than useful, as Schmongeling Gnomes are excellent tunnelers, and climbing a tree proved even less useful, as they can fly, too. (My Schmongeling Gnomes have wings. I bred them that way, and I’m damned proud of it. Crossing them with moths and bullfinches was hard, grueling work…)

Unfortunately, my clever breeding tricks proved to be my undoing. Flying gnomes. Flying Schmongeling Gnomes, flitting up and swooping down on poor helpless Pnårp as he hid amongst the branches of a ficus tree and prayed to the voluptuous insect goddess Strahazazhia Kalamazoo-Kintaki-Meeps and Her six-legged delights for salvation. Poor Phillip I, nearly devoured by thousands of tiny flying gnomes. Nearly. But not quite. Oh, no, you see… I had a secret weapon.

Panic. Pure, unadulterated panic. I flew out of there like a bat out of Hell: Whiter than a ghost, madder than a hatter, hornier than a toad, grunkier than an old geldingwhale, more enspulminated than a caffeinated Lorax after a run-in with a whole platoon of Oncelers. I shrieked, I screamed, I squealed, and I bellowed. I pawed madly at the air like a cornered duck. I spun about like a lioncow in a cage (a small one). I stripped down to my drawers and paced about in terror and confusion. I cried out for salvation from the thousands and thousands of tiny, tiny gnomes—Strahazazhia, save me, O thirty-toed one!—swarming about the tree, flying and diving, swooping and creeping, buzzing and needling and wheedling, crawling up the trunk and throughout the branches, closer now, oh yes, crawling, closer, crawling, crawling, closer, closer, creeping and seeping, swarming, swarming—oh, my Lord!—they were everywhere!

And then I flew out of that tree on the frogblinted stewback of a borfnoggler gunflaven, nary a floompkin horse-hockey whacka-doodle in goe, nor a swivenroach perfelted near cathentious varnieblones—that I did, yes, that I did—out of the ficus tree, out of the leaves… up the branches, out the top, into the air, flying, flying, soaring, soaring… Gnomes, gnomes, Gnomes, gnomes, Schmongeling Gnomes, dongling Schmongeling Gnomes…

But even then I wasn’t fast enough! Upon me they swarmed, over me they crawled, up my nostrils they burrowed, wheedling and needling, wheezing and whizzing, trying to devour me too—their lord and emperor, their sovereign, Phillip I, most serene monarch, protector and pooperscooper of Bouillabaissia! How dare they! And …now I had another secret weapon!

Rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. Red, storming, rip-snorting, tearing rage. I screamed, I howled, I stomped them all to death—one by one, ten by ten, handful by handful, toeful by toeful. I crushed them all: I destroyed them, obliterated them, annihilated them, granticulated them thoroughly—caving in their tiny little skulls as easily as I slip on a pair of slippers when I go wandering about the woods at 3:00 AM for a midnight snack consisting of dingleberries and raccoon pouches.

With the rebellion put down, I returned to ruling over Bouillabaissia with an iron fist cleverly concealed beneath kid gloves. Haldûrburðgar would be proud of me. If I hadn’t squished him flat! Heehee hee hee heeee!! Haw, haw, haw!!